


The Magical Applications of Cinnamon

by CypressSunn



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Anxiety Attacks, Domestic, Hangover, M/M, Triggers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-31
Updated: 2020-01-31
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:48:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22503541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CypressSunn/pseuds/CypressSunn
Summary: Eliot may not survive his hangover. Quentin makes breakfast.
Relationships: Quentin Coldwater/Eliot Waugh
Comments: 5
Kudos: 59
Collections: 101 Prompts Meme





	The Magical Applications of Cinnamon

**Author's Note:**

> I told myself I would post something before January ends. And here we are? Under the wire of midnight. Which is something I guess. Any who, Darcy prompted me with "pancakes" and I topped it off with a 101 prompt #84: Cinnamon.
> 
> Warnings for a mild anxiety attack. Very fleeting. Just a look into magical domestics and morning after hijinks. I've also never written this pairing or fandom before, let alone posted something unrevised so forgive whatever transpires here.
> 
> Plus, I don't think I normally write fix-it fic either, but since Quentin's alive here and I'm guessing that's what this is? ::shrugs::
> 
> Enjoy.

“Could you stop moving,” Eliot begs with dramatic flourish when Quentin sets the platter before him. The once high king of somewhere or other is stooped over their kitchenette table in a splayed open robe with a cold cloth pressed to his temple, groaning in abject misery that the sun dare rise within his line of sight. “All this unnecessary movement in my peripheral vision is going to make me—” Eliot hunches down as his stomach lurches.

“Pretty sure your nausea has less to do with me,” Quentin rifles around the unsorted silverware drawer, the one that no amount of magical effort would grease enough to stop it from sticking so it had to be wrenched open _loudly_ , “and more to do with you accepting that last drink from Josh that I told you—”

“—not to drink,” Eliot murmurs, eyelids squeezed shut. “Yes, I remember.”

Producing a fork that glints in the light pouring in their lattice window, Quentin turns around. “Oh really? You remember that? What else did I say?”

Eliot dares to glance up and winces instantly. He distracts himself by looking over his shoulder, mumbling in his singsong tenor, “Now where did I leave that little hangover panacea…?”

Behind them, their tenement apartment is a cramped, cluttered thing shared between them. The living space is packed with all of Eliot’s numerous and elaborate worldly possessions; the self-playing harp, the chandelier yet to be hung, garment racks with silks hanging askew from the prior night’s fashionably late attire crisis. Quentin’s things, however, when finally removed from Brakebills — once Eliot convinced him it was time to move on, to move in — had somehow been magically removed from the chaos.

Their most private spaces seemed to amass most of his belongings. Behind their closed bedroom door, his bookshelves lined the walls. The one extra room they leased that didn't share a wall with noisy neighbors had Quentin’s desk, his laptop and his father’s old stationary. His bath towels hung over the edge of the tub, not Eliot’s with the superior thread-count. Even in the kitchen, his books found their way into the most improbable places; _Astrophysics for People in a Hurry_ and _A New Path To The Waterfall_ were stacked in the spice rack between the bay leaves and the kosher salt.

Domesticity seemed to suit him and his. For good or ill and even the more ridiculous and contrived; for instance, his boyfriend losing a drinking game to a hedge witch and performing a pole dance as comeuppance. 

Quentin slips the silverware in his hands. “Eat, Eliot.”

Looking down at last, Eliot realizes there is breakfast plated before him. Steaming hot pancakes off the griddle adorned with sliced fruit. “I would rather starve.”

“Just eat the pancakes.”

“Really, I appreciate the effort and it looks…” Eliot pauses, searches to the least queasy word, “…delectable,” he decides on as he shoves the plate away. “That's part of the reason I am so very sure this wouldn’t remain long in the sickening chasm that is now my stomach.”

“Eliot,” he warns, “you're not going to feel any better until you eat something.”

“ _Au contraire_ , I can assure you this will have the opposite of the effect your intending.” 

“Maybe I slipped some of that panacea of yours into the batter.”

“Maybe I was lying about having any of that at all.” Eliot sips at the orange juice in an attempt to placate Quentin. It goes down sour and sharp. “Really, I promise, Q, this isn’t a monster you feed, it’s one you wait out—”

It is the silliest things that trigger people. The hazel of Eliot’s eyes going dark with recognition, a mistake, a misspoken word that sends Quentin’s heart racing, pounding against the walls of his chest trying to break through. Swaying on his feet, Quentin and holds himself up over the sink. Eliot stays rooted to his stool; he’s learned Quentin will tell him when he is ready to be touched.

Breathing in and out, Quentin calms himself. It's a process and its work. But it’s not Eliot’s fault. It could never be his fault that sometimes when his hair hung just the wrong way across his face Quentin would blink and fear and dread and question whether he was really there at all. Whether it was him or that nameless aberration.

Most times, few and far between, it lasted the skip of a heartbeat. Other times it dragged on until Eliot called him home.

“Q?” 

Quentin snaps back at once. Finds Eliot with a mouthful of starchy fried flat cakes, talking before swallowing. “Pass the syrup?”

His hands are jittery, but it gives him something to do, something to focus on and he doesn’t drop the ornate crystal dispenser Eliot fished out of the Magician’s Bazaar in Chinatown. “I’m sorry—”

“Why?” Eliot feigns obliviousness while smacking his lips. “These are delicious. Exactly how long have you known how to make pancakes?”

Quentin huffs out a laugh at the accusation. “Since I was twelve and my parents let me use the stove.”

“You’re telling me you could have been making me flapjacks all this time and we’ve been eating leftover takeout for breakfast instead?”

“That was a personal choice you inflicted on me, not the other way around.”

Eliot would argue more but he really seems to enjoy the rest of his breakfast, breaking only top off his orange juice and relish in Quentin’s returning smile.

“I feel… better?” Eliot realizes after once the dishes are set in soapy water. He sits up straight and the oncoming urge to hunker down and unearth his stomach contents does not overtake him. Something does not add up. “Why do I feel better. I was riotously drunk and unrighteously hungover. Nothing cures that.”

“Well, we are magicians,” Quentin points out with a shrug.

“So what were my pancakes laced with?”

“You can thank Josh. He’s growing more medicinal herbs than just weed in that garden of his.”

Eliot’s brain lights up. A half formed image wriggles free in his mind’s eye “The garden that… I threw up in?”

“So you do remember parts of last night. Expect an angry call from Margo and no, I will not be protecting you from her.”

Eliot sighs. Not that he didn’t love his Bambi with his whole heart, but her settling for and settling down with Hoberman would never be acceptable in his eyes. And if she dare repeat that she simply picked out a nerd for her very own, much like Eliot had, they may come close to an actual tiff; or worse yet, a quarrel. 

“Be nice, Eliot.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Whatever you were thinking about Josh, they weren’t nice thoughts,” Quentin says knowingly because of course he knows Eliot forwards and back and any way in-between. “And after he went out of his way to make sure you didn’t die of a hangover. He was pretty drunk himself but he kept saying this enchanted cinnamon was making him a killing on the hedge witch market. And he still gave it to us for free.”

Well, while the school of Natural magic would always be boring, at least Hoberman’s street trade of illicit fauna would keep Margo in Givenchy and Jimmy Choo’s as she deserved. Wait.

“I didn’t taste any cinnamon.”

Quentin waves it off. “I’d guess it’s probably better medicine than it is flavoring.”

“So Hoberman can’t even get spice right.”

“I said be _nice_.”

“What? He can’t hear me and more importantly neither can Margo—” Eliot stops, his stomach rumbling loud enough for them both to hear in the kitchenette. It ceases all at once, and Eliot realizes what is happening. Turning aside and holding a fist to his mouth, he belches at an embarrassing volume.

“Attractive,” Quentin jokes. “Just, so very hot.”

“Magical side-effect,” Eliot all but shouts, half flustered, half accustomed to the hazards of close quarter living. Mortification in all, he was mostly sure he could get used to this; could find time in his forever for this. For all of the henpecking and the fussing and Quentin tiring of the unhung chandelier and the other fanciful finds Eliot would drag home. For the books Quentin could never find, resorting to tearing through cupboards and closets because he was always forgetting his summoning charm. The late nights under covers where cold feet always found Eliot's skin, the accompanied grousing over stolen aided with stolen kisses. 

“If you insist,” Quentin rolls his eyes, skeptical.

“I do insist!” Eliot returns, finally fastening his robe to stand. “Oh, fuck.” Eliot groans as pounds his chest with a closed hand and tremors with residual hiccups. He frowns, “I think I taste that cinnamon now.”

With a pitying look. Quentin makes room at the sink where Eliot joins him. There Eliot nips a kiss down along his collar bone which earns him an elbow to side and a jab about bad breath. His one and only love; always so ticklish and so prickly. 

“Maybe next time you'll listen when I say you've had your last drink of the night.”

Eliot hums along in agreement, knowing he won't. But together, standing barefoot on the tiles in the warmed over sunlight, all is forgiven and they dip their fingers into the sudsy water and wash the remainder of the morning away.

_**fin.** _


End file.
